


Until the End

by toyhto



Category: Wiedźmin | The Witcher - All Media Types
Genre: Angst, Canonical Character Death, F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-02-16
Updated: 2020-02-16
Packaged: 2021-02-28 02:01:06
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 993
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22755937
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/toyhto/pseuds/toyhto
Summary: The revenge died in her eyes the second he pushed his blade through her skin.What was the point in saying you were sorry, when you were still holding the blade?
Relationships: Geralt z Rivii | Geralt of Rivia/Renfri | Shrike
Comments: 12
Kudos: 36





	Until the End

**Author's Note:**

> I'm only familiar with the Netflix show! I rewatched episode 1 today and oh my dear heart, the amount of feelings.
> 
> You can say hi to me on [tumblr](http://toyhto.tumblr.com)!
> 
> Translation to Russian available [here](https://ficbook.net/readfic/9075546)!

There was no body to bury.  
  
He rode until there was at least five miles in between he and Blaviken, and there he stopped. It was like everything had been teared out of him. He got off the horse and let her reach for the already dead grass of last summer, and then he leaned his palms onto his knees and tried to breathe. _A lesser evil._ His mouth tasted of ash and there was still blood in his hands.  
  
He sat down in the mud and closed his eyes.  
  
  
**  
  
  
“Don’t touch her,” he had told Stegobor.  
  
The night before, the hands on her were his. Did he really think she was going to leave Blaviken? Did he really think she would give up her revenge and go? Or was it just that he had been alone for too long? It had been years and decades since anyone had looked at him and _seen_ him, and there she was, her skin warm under his touch, her heart a steady beat under his hands. She touched his face as if she wasn’t wary of him, then slowly undressed him and drew lines on his bare skin like he was anyone, ignored his scars and made a map of touches over them.  
  
He closed his eyes. He could smell the forest, he could smell fall in the wind, but all that faded when Renfri kissed him. She was sitting in his lap, her hands on his shoulders and neck and chest and sides and arms, and he held onto her and kissed her the best he could. His heart grew heavy and it was a foreign feeling, like a scent carried by the wind or a sound that had an echo in his past. She didn’t seem to expect much of him. _He_ had expected much and more of himself for as long as he could remember, and now he felt like it was all lifted from his hands, if only for a moment. And what was trusted in his hands instead was her, as she reached her hand inside his smallclothes and wrapped her fingers around his cock, and then, slowly, lowered herself into his lap.  
  
Now, he wished he had kept his eyes open. Perhaps then he would have had a hint of what she was going to do. Perhaps then he wouldn’t have dared to fall asleep and would have kept her in his arms instead.  
  
But the only time he held her again was in the market in Blaviken, where her blood was running through his fingers and her body was still warm but growing colder in his arms. His hands were shaking, and his heart was so quiet that his ears were ringing. A few seconds ago, she had looked at him in the eyes and it had been there, the revenge that she carried so close to her heart that she couldn’t find a way to cut it out. Perhaps if he had looked her in the eyes earlier, when he had held her in his lap, perhaps then he would have seen it. Perhaps he could have found the way to cut it out for her.  
  
And he did, kind of.  
  
The revenge died in her eyes the second he pushed his blade through her skin.  
  
He wanted to apologize, but what was the point? What was the point in saying you were sorry, when you were still holding the blade?  
  
  
**  
  
  
He slept under the trees and had a dream about her in his hands, but she was half-gone already. He tried to reach her eyes but couldn’t. He tried to talk to her but didn’t have a voice. The only thing he could do was to touch her, and he did, he buried himself in her as deep as he could and tried to keep her with him. But when he pulled out, she was bleeding, and she smiled at him and told him he had made choice.  
  
He didn’t know which of them was a monster now. He rode to the north for a day, even though what he wanted was to turn back and burn Stregobor’s castle down, burn everything down and carry her out of there and take her somewhere where no one could reach her. But she was already gone from them all.  
  
He talked to Roach, but the horse only looked at him, and he missed Renfri’s voice. He slept the night under his blanket in the woods and missed her warmth, and in the morning, he leaned against the pine tree and wrapped his fingers around his cock and missed her hands. He wished he could have met her before the hope of revenge had grown heavier in her heart than the will to live. But he wondered if there had been time a like that. And the more days passed, the more he thought that if someone had been a monster in this tale, it had been him. What did he think he had that would have changed her mind? His words? His hands?  
  
He thought about burying the brooch he had gotten from her, but in the end, he couldn’t let go of it.  
  
When he slept, it was his own voice that was calling him a monster. But sometimes, just before he woke up, he thought he heard her reaching for him in the sounds of wind and grass. She didn’t call him names. She didn’t blame him, even though she ought to have. She thought they were the same, and the hand that had pushed the blade through her skin could have as easily cut his.  
  
He held her cold body in his dreams. At least she had got to keep her revenge close to her until the end. And what was left for him was to live his life and carry the blame that was slowly fading in his mind like the warmth of her hands.


End file.
